2133

Volume: 23, Issue: 1
Page: 38-60
International Journal of Science and Business
2023
Journal homepage: ijsab.com/ijsb
The Influence of service equity and

psychological Contract on Customer
Citizenship Behavior in Chinese Fitness
Service Enterprises: Customer Satisfaction
as an Intermediary
Li Haiqing
Abstract
At present, the output value provided by the service sector accounts for about
70 percent of the China GDP, which is an important indicator to measure a
country's economic development. However, the homogenization of the
current service industry is relatively high. To obtain a place in the
competitive market, customer relationship management is particularly
important. In recent years, the academic circle has put forward the idea that
"customer is a part of enterprise human resources" and put forward the
concept of "customer citizenship behavior" based on the theory of IJSB
Accepted 09 May 2023
organizational behavior. In other words, customers who enjoy good service Published 11May 2023
DOI: 10.58970/IJSB.2133
will take the initiative to make free publicity for the enterprise and provide
good suggestions to help the enterprise improve the service process.
Enterprises should strive to use the existing customer resources to bring
more tangible or intangible benefits for the enterprise. Based on the
quantitative design and the social exchange theory, the purpose of this study
is to explore the relationship between customer citizenship behavior,
psychological contract, and service equity. From the findings of this study, the
psychological contract and service equity, influence the mechanism of
psychological contract and service equity on customer citizenship behavior
respectively and discusses the mediating role of customer satisfaction in the
above influencing process. The implication is to provide guidance for ISSN: 2520-4750 (Online) 2521-3040 (Print)
enterprises to use psychological contract and service equity to promote

customer citizenship behavior, to bring more customers to the marketing
practice. Papers published by IJSAB International are
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Keywords: Customer citizenship behavior, Psychological contract, Service equity, Customer satisfaction.
About Author (s)

Li Haiqing, SMC University, Switzerland.
38
IJSB Volume: 23, Issue: 1 Year: 2023 Page: 38-60
Introduction
In western human resource management and organizational behavior research, psychological
contract and organizational citizenship behavior have been hot issues since the 20th century.
With the improvement of national education level and quality, enterprises have requirements
for applicants such as education background, experience, ability and so on. Meanwhile, the
publicity of enterprises themselves and the outside world also prompts the applicants to have
a kind of treatment and emotional expectations for the enterprise. This mutual demand and
expectation form a kind of implicit psychological expectation, namely psychological contract.
Once fulfilled, this psychological contract will prompt employees to have a high sense of
satisfaction, and thus consciously make actions that are beneficial to the enterprise, namely
organizational citizenship behavior (Rousseau, 1990). Psychological contract originally
originated from organizational behavior. Roehling (1996) replaced it in the field of marketing
and found that there was also a psychological contract between customers and enterprises. In
addition to the purchase of enterprise products, enjoy the service provided by the enterprise
and the written indication of after-sales service, customers also have expectations of such as
enterprise service personnel should respect customers, to provide sincere service to customers
and other implicit requirements. At the same time, in the 21st century, some scholars
(Gruen,1995; Groth,2011) studied customer citizenship behavior and believed that customers
would spontaneously recommend the enterprise to others, help others to make choices, and
give service feedback to the enterprise, which would bring huge profits to the enterprise. The
global economy is shifting from an "industrial economy" to a "service economy" as service
companies account for a growing share of gross domestic product. In terms of service
marketing, on the one hand, due to the intangible characteristics of service products,
production and consumption at the same time, customers can not have an accurate
understanding of the quality of services before consumption, they tend to get information from
people who have similar purchasing experience. Therefore, the recommendation and help
behavior of experienced customers will have a significant impact on customer decision-
making. On the other hand, due to the variability of service products, it is difficult for customers
to evaluate the standard of service quality, and customers are more likely to judge whether the
service provided by enterprises is fair by comparing with other customers. Customers feel fair
service, will help enterprises to provide positive evaluation and even positive word-of-mouth
publicity. On the contrary, if customers feel that the company has unfairly served them, the
negative word-of-mouth effect will have a negative impact on the company's image. (Chen et
al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al. 2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022). At present,
the tertiary industry is developing rapidly, but there are still many problems in service
enterprises, such as the high degree of homogeneity of service enterprises, lack of core
competitiveness. How to use the existing loyal customers to attract more potential customers
and make customer citizenship behavior bring more benefits to the enterprise is the focus of
service enterprises, and it is also an advantage that cannot be replicated in the homogeneous
market competition. Considering scholars at home and abroad (Roehling, 1996; Groth,2011;
Luo Haicheng and Fan Xiucheng, 2015; Yang Lin, 2010) studies the theories of psychological
contract, service equity and customer citizenship behavior. This paper concludes that customer
psychological contract and service equity can promote customer citizenship behavior. At the
same time, the fulfillment of both psychological contract and service equity can make
customers feel satisfied, thus leading to the generation of customer citizenship behavior.
Therefore, this paper argues that customer satisfaction plays a mediating role in the influence
of psychological contract and service equity on customer citizenship behavior respectively.
Using structural equation model, this study found that: (1) psychological contract and service
equity have significant positive effects on customer citizenship behavior; Among them,
customer satisfaction plays an intermediary role in the influence of psychological contract and
39
service equity on customer citizenship behavior. (2) The two dimensions of psychological
contract have significant positive effects on the three dimensions of customer citizenship
behavior; Among them, transaction psychological contract has the most significant influence
on customer feedback behavior. (3) Outcome fairness has a significant positive impact on the
three dimensions of customer citizenship behavior; Procedural fairness positively affects
helping behavior; Communication fairness positively affects recommendation and feedback
behavior; Information fairness only has a significant positive effect on recommendation
behavior. Finally, on the basis of empirical research, this study provides some suggestions for
the marketing practice of fitness enterprises: pay attention to and maintain customer
psychological contract; Create customer fitness files, establish a good customer communication
mechanism; Provide accurate and timely information; Create a platform for customer
citizenship behavior. (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al. 2022; Zuo et al.
2023; Yan 2022)
Research Background
After the epidemic, health has been paid attention to and the awareness of exercise and fitness
has been awakened: Rousseau once said, "The body is weak, it will never fully cultivate a
dynamic soul and wisdom", a strong body is the guarantee of people's happy life and work,
after the baptism of the novel coronavirus epidemic, people cherish health more, the awareness
of sports and fitness quickly awakened, the number of people who regularly participate in
sports in China reached 435 million yuan in 2020, This is 27.01 million yuan more than in 2019,
and the people are rapidly developing the habit of exercising and keeping fit. Fitness is a kind
of sports items, such as a variety of unarmed asthenics, rhythmic gymnastics, form gymnastics
and a variety of resistance actions, gymnastics, yoga can increase strength, flexibility, increase
endurance, improve coordination, master the strength of each part of the body, to make the
body strong. The market size of China's fitness industry has always maintained a growing
trend. In 2022, the market size of China's fitness industry reached 336.2 billion yuan, with a
year-on-year growth of 8.03%. It is estimated that the market size will further grow to 389
billion yuan in 2022 by the in-depth discussion report on the operation situation and
investment planning of China's fitness industry from 2022 to 2027. The outlook for the fitness
industry is positive, but competition is fierce. From the perspective of the five forces
competition model, there are more enterprises in the fitness industry, and the competition is
fiercer. The upstream suppliers are generally fitness equipment manufacturing industry and
fitness trainer training industry, and the product homogeneity is low, so the upstream
bargaining power is strong. The downstream of the fitness industry is the customer. Due to the
different environment of coaches, courses and venues, the experience gap between different
brands of fitness clubs is large. Therefore, the bargaining power of the downstream customers
is weak. Because the industry needs a large amount of capital investment in the early stage, the
industry potential entry threat is small; At the same time, in recent years, online fitness is more
popular, and the industry substitutes are more threatening. A good fitness organization not
only understands its responsibilities, but also understands the people-oriented service concept.
If the management of the gym still regards the cold business model, equipment and sales as the
first premise, it may be beneficial to the development of the enterprise in the short term. But
good organization in the field of fitness, its social responsibility and the spread of ideas is an
important part of the attraction. From the perspective of service consciousness, nowadays,
with the overwhelming impact of the Internet + boom, the fitness field also plays the Internet
model. For the gym scene, the shared fitness warehouse, mini gym and Internet gym are
impacting the original immature Chinese traditional fitness organizations. Traditional fitness
is a newly emerging fitness mode in China and one of the main application scenarios of Internet
fitness or fitness products. If the service awareness of traditional gyms is not enough to drive
40
people's fitness consumption or even hinder the enthusiasm of the fitness crowd, we ask
whether other derivative services will be greatly reduced in use or even the meaning of
existence? At present, the customer-oriented service consciousness of some gyms has not been
paid enough attention. (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al. 2022; Zuo et
al. 2023; Yan 2022). Since ancient times, "fairness" has always been one of the objects of human
concern. The concept of "fairness" has its specific connotation in different academic fields today.
In the field of sociology, fairness is understood to mean that the social status, economic income
and consumption level among social members are close rather than excessively unequal. In the
field of economics, fairness is mainly reflected in the equal opportunity of employment and
entrepreneurship, and through this opportunity to achieve common prosperity by means of
honest management and legal prosperity. In the field of law, fairness means that everyone
enjoys equal, complete, true and guaranteed civil rights, and uses it to participate in society
with equal opportunities to realize equality before the law. In the field of administration, social
equity emphasizes the promotion of political power and social welfare to those who lack
political and economic resources and are at a disadvantage: it emphasizes the equality of
government service provision and the responsibility and obligation of public managers in the
process of decision-making and organizational implementation. However, in the field of
business administration, theoretical researchers have studied service equity for less than 20
years. Elizabeth C. Kleinmer, an American scholar, put forward the concept of service equity for
the first time in 1988. She believes that the theory of social communication equity is also
applicable to the communication between service enterprises and customers. Service fairness
refers to customers' evaluation of the fairness of service provided by enterprises. In 1998,
American scholars Kathleen Seiders and Leonard L. Berry pointed out in their article Service
Fairness: What it is and Why it Matters: The invisibility of service increases the risk of
customers' purchasing behavior. That is, before purchasing services, customers cannot
evaluate the quality of services. Sometimes, even after consuming services, customers still may
not be able to accurately evaluate their consumption experience. Based on the above situation,
some unfair service enterprises may harm the interests of customers in order to seek greater
personal gains. It is because of this potential threat to customers' interests that customers pay
more attention to the fairness of service. Therefore, enterprises, especially service enterprises,
must attach great importance to service equity. Service equity is one of the hot topics in the
field of service marketing in recent years. In the past decade, equity theory has been widely
applied in the field of service failure and service recovery, but the research results on equity in
service consumption of fitness enterprises are few. In recent years, many scholars have
realized this problem and started to study service equity in the service field of fitness
enterprises and obtained certain research results. Service equity in the service field of fitness
enterprises provides a new idea and entry point for the research on customer satisfaction and
loyalty. The research on the influence of service equity in fitness enterprises on customer
citizenship behavior and customer satisfaction will undoubtedly become one of the types of
research focuses on the academic circle in the future. (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng
2021; She et al. 2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022)
Research purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how customer psychological contract and service equity
affect customer citizenship behavior in the context of marketing, and to explore the mediating
role of customer satisfaction in the influencing process. Combined with the empirical study of
fitness enterprises, the research framework on service equity, customer satisfaction and
customer citizenship behavior is organized and constructed, and the questionnaire is designed
based on this, so as to achieve the following research objectives:
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1. Explore the influence between psychological contract of fitness service enterprises and
customer citizenship behavior.
2. Explore the influence between service fairness of fitness service enterprises and customer
citizenship behavior.
3. Explore the influence between psychological contract and customer satisfaction in fitness
service enterprises.
4. Discuss the influence between service fairness and customer satisfaction of fitness service
enterprises.
5. Explore the influence between customer satisfaction and customer citizenship behavior of
fitness service enterprises.
6. Explore the mediating role of customer satisfaction in fitness service enterprises in
psychological contract and customer citizenship behavior.
7. Explore the mediating relationship between customer satisfaction of fitness service
enterprises and service fairness and customer citizenship behavior.
Research significance
(1) Theoretical significance
By referring to the relevant literature of domestic and foreign scholars, this paper puts
psychological contract, service equity and customer citizenship behavior into a theoretical
framework to supplement the theoretical research of the three. The specific theoretical
significance is as follows: First, it is an interdisciplinary attempt and innovation to extend the
theory of psychological contract and organizational citizenship behavior in organizational
behavior to the field of marketing and explore the relationship between customer
psychological contract and customer citizenship behavior. This study is the first to explore and
verify the relationship between customer psychological contract and customer citizenship
behavior, and to supplement the relationship theory of the two. Second, customer
psychological contract and customer citizenship behavior are hot issues in Western marketing
field in recent years. Domestic research is still in its infancy, and empirical research is rare. Luo
Haicheng (2015) proved that psychological contracts also exist in marketing context through
automobile repair industry and beauty industry and verified the relationship between
psychological contract and customer satisfaction. Later, some scholars (Peng Lei, 2015; Li
Linda, 2017; Yanglin, 2019; Zhao Xin et al., 2011) respectively conducted empirical studies on
tourism, communication, banking, and restaurants, all of which confirmed the existence of
psychological contract in the field of marketing. This study selected the fitness industry with
high customer involvement for empirical study and supplemented the few existing empirical
studies in China. Third, as for the prediction source of customer citizenship behavior, most
previous studies only consider the direct influence of one factor on customer citizenship
behavior and lack the indirect effect of various factors on customer citizenship behavior. In
addition, most studies only focus on the relationship between the whole variables, and do not
carry out in-depth research on the relationship between various dimensions of variables.
Therefore, this paper integrates customer citizenship behavior, psychological contract and
service equity into a model framework, which systematizes the existing isolated research.
Furthermore, the relationship between different dimensions of the variables is studied deeply,
and the existing research is refined. (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al.
2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022)
(2) Practical significance

Customer citizenship behavior can bring benefits to enterprises. For example, customer
recommendation behavior can help the enterprise bring more customers, and customer
helping behavior can help potential customers to understand and choose the enterprise faster
42
and better. Customer feedback behavior can help enterprises improve their services and
management. Therefore, how to help enterprises stimulate customers' civic behavior has
important meaning and value. The practical significance of this paper lies in: First, through the
study of the relationship between psychological contract and customer citizenship behavior,
help enterprises pay attention to the cultivation and maintenance of customer psychological
contract, to promote enterprises to use psychological contract for customer citizenship
behavior marketing. Secondly, through the research on the relationship between service equity
and customer citizenship behavior, the factors that can best promote customer citizenship
behavior in the fitness industry are found out, to help enterprises strengthen the management
mechanism of service equity and stimulate customer citizenship behavior. Finally, from the
perspective of psychological contract and service fairness, help enterprises improve customer
satisfaction, promote the generation of customer citizenship behavior, and bring competitive
advantages to enterprises.
Research innovation
Based on the relevant theories of service equity, psychological contract and organizational
citizenship behavior in organizational behavior, this paper discusses the influence of
psychological contract and service equity on customer citizenship behavior for the first time.
In the study of customer citizenship behavior, based on the review of existing literature, this
paper not only discusses the influence of a single variable on customer citizenship behavior,
but also integrates multiple variables together, puts multiple factors in a framework,
establishes a relationship model, and supplements the relationship between various variables
and dimensions. Through questionnaire survey and data analysis, the paper makes a
comprehensive demonstration, and explores, applies, and promotes the theory of service
equity, psychological contract and organizational citizenship behavior in the marketing field of
fitness enterprises, so as to enrich the theories of service equity, customer psychological
contract and customer citizenship behavior in the marketing context.
Literature review
(1) Review of customer citizenship behavior
The concept of customer citizenship
Gruen for the first time used the concept of "civic behavior" to outline the extra-role behaviors
between customers and enterprises, and defined civic behavior as the behaviors that are
helpful or important to the enterprise. These behaviors are valued by the enterprise but are
not the behaviors that the enterprise requires customers to do. Subsequently, many scholars
at home and abroad have defined "customer citizenship behavior". In summary, customer
citizenship behavior can be summarized into the following three characteristics: (1) It is
voluntary and spontaneous behavior taken by customers, rather than the behavior required by
enterprises; (2) Behaviors that are helpful to the improvement of service quality and operation
efficiency; (3) This behavior is not included in the process of customer's purchase of products
and services.
The dimensions of customer citizenship behavior

Because the research on customer citizenship behavior is still in the initial stage, existing
scholars have different dimensions of customer citizenship behavior and use different scales in
their respective empirical studies. At present, there are three dimensions of customer
citizenship behavior, five dimensions and eight dimensions. Bettencourt (1997) believes that
customer citizenship behavior can be divided into three different roles, namely customer
loyalty, customer participation and customer cooperation. Growth (2011) proposed that
customer citizenship behavior can be summarized into three dimensions, namely customer
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recommendation, customer help and customer feedback, based on the empirical research and
investigation of network service industry. Groth's (2011) views are subsequently supported by
the empirical studies of the fitness and education industries by Gong and Yi (2016, 2018a).
Rosenbaum and Massiah (2017) expand two more dimensions in the composition of customer
citizenship behavior, namely, customer citizenship behavior includes five dimensions: loyalty,
participation, cooperation, empathy, and responsibility. They believe that customers will act in
favor of others out of consideration of their influence on others, namely empathy; Customers
will also think that they are a member of society and have the responsibility to care for others,
namely the sense of responsibility. Based on previous studies, Bove et al. (2018) expanded the
dimensions of customer citizenship behavior and proposed an eight-dimension model.
Scholars such as Chen Xiaojing, Sha Beibei, & Jiang Haibo (2021), Tian Qitao & Ge Fei (2021),
Zuo Wenming, Xu Zixin, Huang Fengxuan, & Jiao Qingsong (2023), etc., further explored or
developed the concepts in it.
The formation mechanism of customer citizenship behavior

The formation of customer citizenship behavior is mainly based on the exchange perspective
based on social exchange theory and the motivational perspective based on customer
motivation. Since the generation of organizational citizenship behavior is based on the social
exchange theory, which has been widely recognized by the academic circle, in the context of
marketing, scholars believe that customer citizenship behavior also originates from the
"reciprocity principle" in the social exchange theory, that is, customers will judge the behavior
to others according to the value or interests they gain. Customers feel that they have benefited
from the products or services provided by enterprises, and then spontaneously generate a kind
of return behavior after benefits, so the formation of customer citizenship behavior. Customers
regard the relationship between them and the enterprise as social exchange, and they feel that
they benefit from the enterprise, so they make exchange returns to the enterprise such as
word-of-mouth publicity, feedback, and suggestions, which is customer citizenship behavior.
Research on organizational behavior holds that the relationship between superior and
subordinate employees will affect organizational citizenship behavior. In the field of marketing,
the relationship between customers and service personnel in service enterprises will also have
an important impact on customer citizenship behavior. Bove et al. (2018) explained the
generation of customer citizenship behavior from the perspective of egoistic motivation and
altruistic motivation. Self-interested motive refers to the expectation that the customer will get
the benefits he has received in the past or the expectation that he will get the returns in the
future. The customer assumes that if he or she is friendly to the service staff, in return, the
service staff will provide better service to the customer. If the customer has received good
service in the past and expects to continue to receive good service in the future, then by being
nice to the service personnel in exchange for good service. Altruistic motive means that
customers sincerely expect to benefit the enterprise or service personnel indirectly. For
example, customers provide feedback or suggestions to the enterprise, which will not directly
benefit the customer, but indirectly benefit the enterprise to improve the service quality
(Grucn, 1995). Ma Shuang & Wang Yonggui (2021) try to introduce "knowledge acquisition
mode" and "organizational citizenship behavior" in the field of knowledge management and
organizational behavior into the study of brand community, and deeply discuss the different
effects of different knowledge acquisition mode on brand identity and its influence mechanism.
The empirical results show that compared with static knowledge acquisition, dynamic
knowledge acquisition can promote customers' community citizenship behavior more
strongly. Compared with in-role behavior, community citizenship behavior promotes brand
identity of community members more strongly.
44
(2) Review of psychological contract

Psychological contract theory in organizational behavior
As early as 1960, organizational psychologist Angyris proposed the concept of "psychological
contract" in the field of management to study the relationship between employees and
employers, but Angyris did not define psychological contract. Subsequently,Lcvison et al.
(1962) described psychological contract as the sum of internal and unwritten mutual
expectations between the organization and the employee. In the 1980s, Schein proposed the
definition of psychological contract for the first time, believing that psychological contract is a
set of implicit expectations between employees, employers, and other members of the
organization. Since the subject of psychological contract is not unique, individuals and
organizations often have different understandings of the content of psychological contract.
Since 1998, scholars have had a fierce debate on the concept of psychological contract, and two
schools of universities have been formed. The "classical school" (led by Guest) believes that the
subjects of psychological contract are both the employee and the employer. In the exchange
relationship, both the employee and the employer have a subjective understanding of their
responsibilities. However, since the views of this school are difficult to be applied in empirical
studies, the definition of psychological contract by the school of "Rousseau" (led by Rousseau)
is generally used in the theoretical circle, that is, psychological contract is an individual
employee's subjective understanding of the responsibility or obligation between the employee
and the employer, and the employer's understanding is excluded here. Consistent with the
theoretical basis of the formation of the concept of organizational customer citizenship
behavior, the formation mechanism of psychological contract also originates from the social
exchange theory centered on the "principle of reciprocity" and the famous equity theory in
sociology. According to the social exchange theory, to obtain their own interests, both sides of
the exchange relationship need to return the benefits already obtained. If both parties gain, the
exchange relationship continues; If one party gains but the other does not, the exchange
relationship terminates (Gouldner, 1960). This leads to the theory of equity, which holds that
what the exchange parties value is a kind of equality between pay-to-return, and only when the
pay-to-return ratio of the exchange parties is roughly the same can the exchange relationship
be maintained, and then the relative psychological balance can be maintained (Adams, 1965).
Jiao Linna (2021) puts forward that the development of knowledge economy and intelligent
manufacturing industry makes the competition for talents among enterprises fiercer.
Meanwhile, the mobility of talents is relatively large, and it is difficult to effectively enhance the
enthusiasm of talents according to the traditional human resource management mode. The
talent management strategy is analyzed from the development dimension, incentive
dimension, organizational commitment, and other aspects of psychological contract, to
effectively promote enterprises Win-win with talent. Meng Yueqiu (2021) proposed that rapid
economic development has intensified the "war" for talents among enterprises. Under the
background of the talent market that is in short supply, enterprise talents tend to follow the
value of "people go to the top", which leads to the high turnover rate of enterprise talents.
However, the traditional human resource management mode has certain drawbacks and
deficiencies, which cannot retain enterprise talents. Updating talent management concepts and
innovating talent management methods is an important way to improve the level of enterprise
talent management, and the most critical link is to require enterprises to implement the
comprehensive management of talents from the perspective of psychological contract. Starting
from the development dimension of psychological contract, incentive dimension and
organizational commitment, the talent management strategy is effectively analyzed, and finally
the enterprise and Win-win for talent. (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al.
2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022).
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The concept of psychological contracts in marketing situations

In the late 1990s, the concept of psychological contract was expanded and extended. In his
research on service management and marketing practices, Roehling found that psychological
contracts not only existed between employers and employees, but also between employers and
external customers of enterprises. Blancero and Ellram(1997) introduced the concept of
psychological contract when studying the relationship between strategic partners, believing
that psychological contract is the responsibility or perception of both partners for the benefits
that can be obtained from each other. Psychological contract also exists in the "buyer-supplier"
relationship, that is, the supplier provides products or services according to the requirements
of the customer, in the expectation that the customer will reach a continuous business with it.
Customers expect suppliers to provide guaranteed products and quality service. This
reciprocal relationship based on mutual interests and mutual expectations is a kind of
psychological contract, but it has not been expressed by scholars with the concept of
psychological contract. Llewellyn (2011) pointed out that psychological contract is the
expectation of both parties to fulfill their responsibilities and how the client should be treated.
Such an expectation reached by both parties is not explicitly stipulated. In service enterprises,
service personnel have the closest contact with customers. There exists both the basic
psychological contract of transaction, that is, customers expect to get the most basic service
guarantee from service personnel, and the contract based on relationship. That is, customers
expect polite, friendly service and caring greetings from service staff (Eddleston, Kidder and
Litzky, 2010). As foreign scholars have extended the psychological contract in organizational
behavior to the field of marketing, domestic scholars such as Luo Haicheng (2015) and Fan
Xiucheng (2016) have also studied the psychological contract between customers and
enterprises and proved that psychological contract also exists in the marketing relationship
through the empirical research on the service industry such as beauty industry, maintenance
industry and banking industry. In view of Rousseau's (1990) narrow definition of psychological
contract, Luo Haicheng (2015) replaced employees and employers in the concept of
psychological contract with clients and enterprises, and defined customer psychological
contract as "clients' perception or belief of reciprocal obligations between themselves and
enterprises". She Shengxiang, Xu Haoran, & Xu Dayou (2022) explores and refines the concept,
structure and content of the psychological contract of consumers to anchors in the context of
live broadcasting marketing through grounded theory and finds that the psychological contract
of consumers to anchors includes two dimensions: "transaction norms" and "relationship
maintenance". With the development of the relationship between consumers and anchors to
different stages, the psychological contract of consumers gradually increases. There are
significant differences between psychological contract in growth stage and maturity stage. At
all stages, "relationship maintenance" was stronger than "transaction regulation". Kang Haiyan
& Ye Mingxin (2021) proposed that the competition among retail enterprises tends to be white-
hot, and the "competition for customers" among retail enterprises becomes increasingly fierce,
but the "uncertainty of customers" is a difficult problem for enterprises to establish a
relationship with customers. Customer psychological contract is the "invisible hand" that
affects customer relationship. It restricts the type of resource exchange between customers
and enterprises and has a set of norms to guide the whole process of resource exchange.
Dimensions of psychological contract in marketing Context

In the field of organizational behavior, Rousseau (1990) verified that psychological contract
can be divided into two dimensions: transactional psychological contract and relational
psychological contract through the empirical study of more than 200 MBA graduates employed
in all walks of life. The former refers to material tangible factors such as money, while the latter
refers to emotional intangible factors such as personal support and family care. As for the
46
dimensions and content of customer psychological contract, Kingshott(2016) points out that
psychological contract includes four dimensions: whether the enterprise treats the customer
fairly, the relationship between conditions, and the inherent characteristics and advantages of
the relationship, following Rousseau's research on psychological contract. Pavlou and Gefen
(2014) divide the dimensions of psychological contract, including transaction and relationship,
is widely adopted in the academic world. In the context of marketing, domestic scholar Luo
Haicheng (2015), to verify the two-dimensional division of transaction psychological contract
and relationship psychological contract, demonstrated the two-dimensional view of customer
psychological contract in the field of marketing through his empirical research on the
automobile maintenance industry and the beauty industry. Yang Lin's (2019) empirical study
based on the banking industry also proved the rationality of the two-dimensional division of
customer psychological contract. The psychological contract of transaction in marketing
context is based on the perception of short-term return or income, which refers to the
customer's perception of the enterprise's relatively clear commitment to it, such as the
guarantee of product and service quality. Relationship psychological contract is established
based on long-term social emotions. It refers to the customer's perception of the care and care
given by the enterprise, which is psychological satisfaction beyond the value of products or
services. For example, service personnel respect and care for customers, and establish a good
interpersonal relationship with customers. Yan Mei (2022) explored the correlation between
customers' consumption intention and event marketing through empirical methods, and
introduced psychological contract to explore its mediating role, with a view to guiding
enterprises to make reasonable use of event marketing to enhance their brand image and
strengthen customers' consumption intention. It is found that both event quality and event
propagation effectiveness can significantly affect customers' consumption intention. Event
quality significantly promoted both transactional and relational psychological contracts. The
effectiveness of event propagation also plays a significant role in promoting transactional and
relational psychological contracts. The consumer intention is positively affected by
psychological contract. Psychological contract plays an intermediary role between event
marketing and customer consumption intention.
(3) A review of service equity

Theoretical development of service equity
The research on service equity theory can be traced back to the equity theory of social
psychology in the 1960s. Adams (1965) first studied equity in the field of organizational
behavior based on the cognitive dissonance theory. People compare their pay-to-play ratio to
others, and when they feel unfairness, they take certain measures (such as going slow at work)
to alleviate the unpleasant feeling of unfairness. Adams' research found that there is a positive
correlation between employees' perceived fairness of work remuneration and their work
motivation. In the 1970s, the fairness theory of Adams was applied by western scholars to
many different fields such as justice, education and interpersonal relations to study people's
attitudes and behaviors. Since 1985, the research of fairness theory has been extended to the
field of business administration. Customers will compare the cost-return ratio they feel in the
process of consumption with those who have the same experience. Only when customers
perceive fairness can customer satisfaction be generated. This perception of fairness is more
likely to be found in the service industry. The concept of service equity was first proposed by
Clemmer in the late 1980s. He and Schneider jointly studied service enterprises to explore the
relationship between customers' perception of fairness in enterprises' attitude and behavior
and customers' repeated purchase intention. Clemmer and Schneider (1993) pointed out that
customers expect fair treatment from enterprises, and the fairness of service will directly affect
customers' repeated purchase intention. Service equity is the customer's perception of
47
whether the business is treating them fairly. Later, the famous American marketing scholars
Seiders and Berry (1998) conducted extensive research on the relationship between service
equity and customer behavior, and demonstrated the importance of service equity in the
service process of enterprises. In the past decade, domestic and foreign scholars have been
very active in the study of service equity, including the dimension study of customer equity
(Colquitt et al., 2011; Zhan Zhifang and Gan Biqun, 2016) also focused on the relationship
between service equity and customer behavior (Wen Biyan et al., 2022). Scholars' research has
proved that service equity has a significant impact on customers' purchasing behavior, and
service enterprises must attach great importance to service equity.
The dimensions of service equity

On the dimension of service equity, the academic circle is not unified. At present, there are two
popular views: three dimensions and four dimensions. The three-dimensional view holds that
service equity includes outcome equity, procedural equity, and communication equity
(Clemmer, 1998; Bies and Shapiro, 2012). Clemmer and Seiders (1996) selected four types of
service enterprises, such as hospitals and hotels, to study service equity, and found that service
equity includes three aspects: the equity of profit after receiving service, the equity of
principles and methods adopted by enterprises in the service process, and the equity of
communication between service personnel and customers in the service process. Yi Yamin
(2019), a domestic scholar, also verified that the service fairness perceived by customers
includes the above three dimensions based on the empirical research on the service industries
such as banking, fast food, and aviation. The four-dimensional view was first proposed by
Greenberg in 1993. He extracted information justice from the communication justice
dimension and believed that whether customers get the information and explanation they
deserve is also a part of the service justice perceived by customers, which should be
independent of the other three dimensions. Colquitt (2011) added the dimension of
information fairness from the perspective of three dimensions by observing the fitting degree
of data.
1) Fairness of results. Outcome equity refers to customers' perception of fairness in benefits
obtained from services, which can significantly affect the relationship between customers and
service enterprises (Oliver, 1999). The indicators of outcome fairness include customers'
perception that their own efforts should match their returns (justice), that they should get the
same standard of service results as other customers in the process of receiving services
(equality), and that they should get the corresponding value according to their legitimate needs
(conformity to needs).
2) Procedural fairness. Procedural fairness, also known as process fairness, refers to the
fairness of the principles and methods followed by customers in the service process to obtain
a certain result or benefit. For service enterprises, the index of procedural fairness usually
includes six aspects: customer waiting time, procedures experienced in the waiting process,
whether individual requirements are met, how fast enterprises serve customers, service
guarantee and service error rate.
3) Fairness in communication. Interpersonal justice, also known as interpersonal justice or
interactive justice, refers to whether customers perceive the fairness of service attitude and
behavior of enterprise service personnel. Although consumers are mainly more concerned
about their own benefits, in the interaction between customers and service personnel, the
service level of service personnel will significantly affect customer satisfaction (Hoffman and
Novak, 1996). Bies proved through empirical research in 2011 that communicative fairness is
an independent dimension from procedural fairness and should be separated. In service
enterprises, the indicators of communication fairness usually include service personnel's
48
respect for customers, polite treatment of customers, honesty to customers, and sincere care
for customers.
4) Information fairness. Information equity refers to whether the customer perceives whether
the company has received a comprehensive explanation of what and how to serve the
information. At present, the independent dimension of information fairness is controversial.
Some scholars believe that information fairness should be included in communication fairness
because it interprets and transmits various decision results. However, some scholars believe
that information fairness is an independent dimension different from the above three kinds of
fairness. Communication fairness refers to whether enterprises or service personnel treat
customers in a polite, respectful, and considerate way when distributing results. Information
fairness is whether a business communicates and explains information to customers that they
should know (Greenberg, 1993).
The research status of service equity theory

The theory of fairness can be traced back to the 1960s, and it has been further studied in many
fields such as organizational behavior and human resource management. In the late 1980s,
Clemmer formally proposed the concept of "service equity" in the field of service marketing,
and the research on service equity began to attract much attention.
In the field of service marketing, domestic and foreign scholars generally pay attention to the
relationship between fairness theory and customer satisfaction in the process of service
recovery. As early as 1975, Thiban and Walker conducted research on the role of procedural
fairness in customer satisfaction. It was found that customers' perception of fairness affected
their satisfaction with the distribution results. Tax and Brown (1998) pointed out that
customers' perception of the fairness of the enterprise's remedial behavior would have an
impact on the satisfaction level. Seiders and Berry (1998) also studied the relationship between
service fairness and customer trust and found that customers can only have a sense of customer
trust if they first feel service fairness. Wolstenholme's (1998) empirical study on four types of
service industries also verified that service fairness would affect customers' trust in
enterprises.
(4) Review of customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction concept
In the field of marketing, Cardozo first proposed the concept of "customer satisfaction" in 1965.
Oliver and Kotler's ideas are widely recognized and adopted by the academic community.
Oliver (1980) believes that customer satisfaction is a network of emotional states formed when
the expectation of the product based on previous experience is consistent with the actual
harvest later. Kotler (2010) believes that customer satisfaction is the feeling state generated
by customers when they evaluate the actual function of products and their previous
expectations. Whether the customer is satisfied is measured by the expected expectation of the
product or service.
Factors influencing customer satisfaction

Domestic and foreign scholars have done a lot of research on the influencing factors of
customer satisfaction, mainly in the following four aspects: Customer expectation. Customer
expectation refers to customers' belief in the future of the products or services provided by the
enterprise, which is derived from customers' demand, their own or others' past purchasing
experience, and the information about the quality and price of the current products or services
conveyed by the enterprise. Customer satisfaction is strongly influenced by customer
expectations and perceptions (Oliver,1980).
49
Customers need it. The customer needs satisfaction model of Woodside and Frcy (1989) states
that customers need to have an impact on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction refers
to a pleasant feeling that a customer's need for a product (or service) has been met. On the
contrary, customer dissatisfaction is caused by customers not getting the satisfaction they need
from the product or service. The more the perceived product or service performance can meet
the needs of customers, the more likely customer satisfaction will occur. On the contrary, the
more the product or service performance perceived by customers cannot meet the needs of
customers, the more likely customer dissatisfaction will occur. Perceive performance: A
customer’s perceived quality of the product (or service) will significantly affect their
satisfaction with the product (or service) (Churchill and Carol, 1982). Based on previous
studies, Walker proposed that the perceived performance that affects customer satisfaction is
not the perception of a certain aspect of a product or service, but a comprehensive perception.
Customer perception of reality must first meet the needs of customers, and at the same time,
the product or service has the function or performance required by customers, to make
customers feel satisfied. If the product or service has function and performance, but the
realization of function and performance is not what the customer needs, the customer will not
have a sense of satisfaction (Berry and Zeithaml, 1985). Equity theory: Based on the social
exchange relationship, the equity theory believes that the repeatable social exchange behavior
is based on the reciprocal relationship between the exchange parties to their respective efforts
and returns. In service enterprises, customer satisfaction with a consumption behavior is based
on the comparison between the customer's input and output and the input and output of the
enterprise's service personnel. Fairness is the basis for customers to evaluate products or
services (Seiders and Berry, 1998).
The relationship between customer satisfaction and customer behavior

Customer satisfaction is a positive post-purchase evaluation, which has a direct and significant
impact on customer's future consumption behavior, mainly manifested in the following three
aspects:
1) Customer satisfaction and repurchase intention. According to the theory of instrumental
conditioning, an individual's behavior is affected by the results of his past behavior. If an
individual is rewarded in the past behavior (satisfied with the evaluation of the behavior
results), the possibility of repeating the past behavior will increase (repeated purchase
behavior reinforcement). Conversely, if an individual is punished for a past behavior
(dissatisfied with the evaluation of the outcome of the behavior), the likelihood of repeating
the past behavior is reduced (repeated purchase behavior subsists). The empirical studies of
scholars have also verified this theoretical viewpoint. Oliver (1980) found that the higher the
degree of satisfaction, the more loyal customers will be to a brand, and thus the stronger the
intention to buy again. It is found in the behavioral research of automobile consumers that
those customers with high satisfaction tend to buy cars of the same brand when they buy them
again (Oliver and Swan, 1989). Cronin and Steven's (1992) empirical study also showed that
customer satisfaction had a significant impact on repeat purchase intention.
2) Customer satisfaction and recommendation behavior. Scholars of service marketing
management assume that people are usually willing to share and recommend satisfying
products or pleasant consumption experiences to family, friends, and colleagues. As Kotler puts
it, "Satisfied consumers are the best advertisement." Empirical studies have proved that
customer satisfaction is one of the important variables for consumers to disseminate
information and recommend others to buy (Dabholkar and Dayle, 1994).
3) Customer satisfaction and loyalty. Loyalty refers to the long-term purchase of products or
services of a certain brand or enterprise by customers because they are satisfied with the brand
or enterprise. It includes behavioral and emotional components, which not only shows
50
repeated purchase, but also shows positive and satisfied attitude towards the brand or
enterprise. Based on the above analysis, on the one hand, customer satisfaction has an impact
on customers' repeated purchase behavior; on the other hand, customers' positive evaluation
of brands or enterprises. Such positive evaluation will promote the formation of brand belief,
thus affecting the emotional component of loyalty, namely, customer satisfaction affects
customer loyalty (Bolemer and Lemmink, 1995).
(5) The relationship between customer citizenship behavior, psychological contract and
service equity
The relationship between psychological contract and client citizenship behavior
In organizational behavior, psychological contract positively affects organizational citizenship
behavior (Luo Qiuming, 2019). Psychological contract is an important antecedent variable of
organizational citizenship behavior (Tumley and Feldman, 2010). At the same time, the higher
the degree of satisfaction of psychological contract, the more obvious organizational
citizenship behavior of employees. On the contrary, the lower the degree of satisfaction of
psychological contract, the less significant the organizational citizenship behavior of
employees (Yu Chen, 2017). At present, although domestic and foreign scholars have not
directly studied the relationship between psychological contract and client citizenship
behavior. However, the existing literature shows that when customers feel that the expected
expectations have been realized, they will not only buy the products or services of the
enterprise repeatedly, but also take the initiative to tell others about their satisfactory
consumption experience, helping the enterprise to make good publicity (Roseenbaum and
Massish, 2017). It can be predicted that the fulfillment of customer psychological contract has
an important impact on customer citizenship behavior. From the perspective of social exchange
theory, the formation of customer citizenship behavior and customer psychological contract
originates from the "reciprocity principle" in exchange relationship. When customers expect to
benefit from the enterprise and get actual satisfaction, they will have a sense of responsibility
for the return of the enterprise and take the initiative to show the return behavior of the
enterprise, such as word-of-mouth publicity of the place they are satisfied with, helping other
customers to collect and understand the information related to the enterprise, giving feedback
on the enterprise's services, giving suggestions to the enterprise, etc. (Fan Jun and Kong
Jingwei, 2019). Customer psychological contract is an important antecedent variable of
customer citizenship behavior. From the perspective of motivation, the main motivation of
customer citizenship behavior comes from customers' expectation that the enterprise may
fulfill its responsibilities in the future, that is, an expectation of return, while psychological
contract is customers' expectation that the enterprise may fulfill its responsibilities, which can
promote the generation of customer citizenship behavior (Fan Jun and Kong Jingwei, 2019).
The Relationship between Service Equity and customer citizenship

Seiders and Berry (1998) pointed out in their study on the fairness of restaurant service that if
a customer thinks the service of the restaurant is especially fair, he is very likely to visit the
restaurant again and recommend the restaurant to his relatives and friends, but they did not
carry out empirical research on this. Later, Jin Liyin (2016) found through the study of the
education and training industry that the three dimensions of service equity all have a direct
impact on customer citizenship behavior. Among them, communication equity not only directly
affects customer citizenship behavior, but also indirectly influences customer citizenship
behavior through intermediary variables. Xie Lishan et al. (2017, 2018) discussed the
relationship between the four dimensions of customer perception of service justice and
customer citizenship behavior for Internet services. The empirical results showed that
information justice had both direct and indirect effects on customer citizenship behavior.
51
Result, procedure, and communication fairness have only indirect effects on client citizenship
behavior. Korean scholars Yly and Gong.T(2018) introduced the mediating variable of
customer emotion and found that the three dimensions of customer perception, namely,
outcome, procedure and communication fairness, all have indirect effects on customer
citizenship behavior through customer emotion. Bove et al. (2018) 's findings in barbershops
and hospitals also support this view.
The relationship between customer satisfaction and customer citizenship

The research of Bove et al. (2018) shows that customers' satisfaction with enterprise service
personnel will have a direct and significant impact on customer citizenship behavior. Xie
Leshan and Shen Wenguo et al. (2018) pointed out that customer satisfaction not only has a
significant impact on customer citizenship behavior, but also is an important intermediary
variable. Based on the research of travel agencies, Peng Jiamin and Xiao Yue (2019) found that
customer participation directly affects customer satisfaction, and then has a significant indirect
impact on customer citizenship behavior. Customer satisfaction has a complete mediating
effect on recommendation and a partial mediating effect on feedback and helping behavior.
Research method
Firstly, this paper uses the literature research method to sort out the existing research of
domestic and foreign scholars, so as to provide a theoretical basis for the establishment of the
relationship model of psychological contract, service equity and customer citizenship behavior.
Secondly, based on the measurement scale developed by predecessors, appropriate
modifications are made for the fitness industry, and field visits are used to adjust the designed
scale. Then the data were collected by questionnaire survey. Finally, the empirical research
method is used to analyze the data. The details are as follows:
(1) Literature research method. This paper refers to a large number of domestic and foreign
literature, and has a deeper understanding of the concept, dimension, theoretical development
and mutual relationship of the study variables, which provides theoretical support for the
establishment of the relationship model in this paper.
(2) Field visit and questionnaire survey. In the design process of the questionnaire, the
prototype of the questionnaire was formed first according to the existing scale. Then, during
the field visit, the rationality of the index and variable design was verified through the brief
interview with the managers, staff and some members of the fitness enterprise, and the
questionnaire was issued with small samples for preliminary analysis of the data, to ensure the
reliability and validity of the questionnaire.
(3) empirical research method. After collecting the original data through questionnaire survey,
SPSS17.0, a statistical analysis software, was used to test reliability, validity, and correlation
analysis. Then, LISREL8.70 was used to establish structural equation model, and the
relationship between various variables was studied from an empirical perspective to test the
research hypotheses of this paper.
Research problem
This paper proposes the following specific research questions:
(1) How does the psychological contract of fitness service enterprises influence the existence
of customer citizenship behavior? (2) What is the influence of service fairness of fitness service
enterprises on the existence of customer citizenship behavior? (3) What is the impact of
psychological contract of fitness service enterprises on customer satisfaction? (4) How does
service fairness of fitness service enterprises affect customer satisfaction? (5) How does
customer satisfaction of fitness service enterprises influence the existence of customer
citizenship behavior? (6) Does customer satisfaction of fitness service enterprises play a
52
mediating role in the relationship between psychological contract (2 dimensions) and

customer citizenship behavior (3 dimensions)? (7) Does customer satisfaction of fitness
service enterprises play a mediating role in the relationship between service equity (4
dimensions) and customer citizenship behavior (3 dimensions)?
Research hypopaper
(1) The hypopaper of the relationship between psychological contract and client
citizenship behavior
On the one hand, based on the social exchange theory, both psychological contract and
customer citizenship behavior are formed based on the "reciprocity principle" in social
exchange relations. The profits of customers from social exchange relations will make
customers feel a sense of responsibility for the return of the enterprise, and thus affect the
reputation publicity of the enterprise by customers (Fan Jun and Kong Jingwei, 2019). On the
other hand, based on the motivation theory, the occurrence of customer citizenship behavior
originates from the benefits they have obtained or their expectations for results, and customers
believe that service personnel will fulfill their due responsibilities or obligations in the future
(Fan Jun and Kong Jingwei, 2019). As can be seen from the previous literature review, the
realization of customers' expected expectations will not only encourage customers to continue
to buy the enterprise's products and services, but also influence customers to actively
recommend new customers for the enterprise and make favorable word-of-mouth publicity for
the enterprise (Roseenbaum and Massish, 2017). Meanwhile, empirical research results also
prove that psychological contract is an important antecedent variable of organizational
citizenship behavior (Tumley, 2010). Therefore, the following hypopaper is proposed in this
paper:
H1: Psychological contract has a positive impact on customer citizenship behavior.
Hla: Trading psychological contract has a positive effect on customer recommendation behavior
Hlb: Relational psychological contract has a positive effect on customer recommendation
behavior
Hlc: Transaction psychological contract has a positive influence on customers' helping behavior
H1d: Relational psychological contract has a positive influence on clients' helping behavior
H1e: Trading psychological contract has a positive influence on customer feedback behavior
H1f: Relationship psychological contract has a positive influence on customer feedback behavior
(2) The hypopaper of the relationship between service fairness and customer
citizenship behavior
Berry and Zeithaml (1985) studied the service fairness of restaurants and concluded that those
customers who thought the service of restaurants was fair were more inclined to recommend
the restaurant network to their relatives, friends, or colleagues. Groth (2015) pointed out that
whether the service of service enterprises is fair will have an impact on word-of-mouth,
feedback and other behaviors. In recent years, domestic and foreign scholars have proved that
there is a positive correlation between service equity and customer citizenship behavior (Jin
Liyin, 2016; Xie Lishan et al., 2017; Bove et al., 2018; Yi.Y and Gong.T, 2018). Therefore, the
following hypopaper is proposed in this paper:
H2: Service fairness has a positive influence on customer citizenship behavior
H2a: Outcome fairness has a positive influence on customer recommendation behavior
H2b: Procedural fairness has a positive influence on customer recommendation behavior
H2c: Communication fairness has a positive influence on customer recommendation behavior
H2d: Information fairness has a positive influence on customer recommendation behavior
H2e: Outcome fairness has a positive influence on customers' helping behavior
H2f: Procedural fairness has a positive influence on customers' helping behavior
53
H2g: Communication fairness has a positive influence on customers' helping behavior

H2h: Information fairness has a positive influence on customers' helping behavior
H2i: Outcome fairness has a positive influence on customer feedback behavior
H2j: Procedural fairness has a positive influence on customer feedback behavior
H2k: Communication fairness has a positive influence on customer feedback behavior
H2l: Information fairness has a positive influence on customer feedback behavior
(3) The relationship hypopaper with customer satisfaction as the intermediary variable
Customer satisfaction depends on the degree of conformity between consumers' expectations
for products or services and their real feelings (Qiu Shu, 2018). The fulfillment of psychological
contract is the basis for the formation of customer satisfaction, which depends on the degree
of conformity between the expectations contained in psychological contract and the reality
(Wang Shuhong, 2015). Guo Hui and Zhong Sheng (2019) pointed out that customer
psychological contract is a kind of psychological guarantee based on trust, which plays a very
positive role in the relationship between customers and enterprises. Domestic scholars have
also proved through empirical studies that psychological contract has a significant positive
impact on customer satisfaction (Luo Haicheng and Fan Xiucheng, 2015; Yanglin, 2020).
Therefore, the following hypopaper is proposed in this paper:
H3: Psychological contract has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
H3a: Transaction psychological contract has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
H3b: Relational psychological contract has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
Domestic and foreign scholars have made a large number of empirical studies on the
relationship between service recovery, service equity and customer satisfaction in the normal
service process of enterprises, and they all prove that service equity has a significant impact on
customer satisfaction (Greenberg, 1993; Seiders and Berry, 1998; Wen Biyan et al., 2012;
Iyamin, 2019). Therefore, the following hypopaper is proposed in this paper:
H4: Service fairness has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
H4a: Outcome fairness has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
H4b: Procedural fairness has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
H4c: Communication fairness has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
H4d: Information fairness has a positive impact on customer satisfaction
Bove et al. (2018) pointed out that customer satisfaction with service personnel will directly
and significantly affect customer citizenship behavior. Customer satisfaction can directly cause
the generation of customer citizenship behavior and is an important antecedent variable of
customer citizenship behavior (Bettencourt, 1997; Xie Lishan et al., 2018; Peng Jiamin and Xiao
Yue, 2019). Therefore, the following hypopaper is proposed in this paper:
H5: Customer satisfaction has a positive influence on customer citizenship behavior
H5a: Customer satisfaction has a positive impact on customer recommendation behavior
H5b: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer helping behavior
H5c: Customer satisfaction has a positive impact on customer feedback behavior
The research results of Luo Haicheng and Fan Xiucheng (2015) show that customer
psychological contract significantly affects customer satisfaction. Based on the social exchange
theory, customer satisfaction will encourage customers to make voluntary behaviors to repay
the enterprise. The research results of Bove et al. (2018) also show that customer satisfaction
has a significant impact on customer citizenship behavior. Combining hypopaper 3 and
hypopaper 5, this paper concludes that psychological contract influences customer citizenship
behavior through customer satisfaction. Therefore, hypopaper 6 is proposed:
H6: Customer satisfaction plays an intermediary role in the relationship between psychological
contract (2 dimensions) and customer citizenship behavior (3 dimensions).
54
Many scholars at home and abroad have proved that service equity has a significant impact on
customer satisfaction. In addition, the study found that service fairness not only has a direct
effect on customer citizenship behavior, but also has an indirect effect through mediating
variables, including customer satisfaction, customer emotion, etc. (Jin Liyin, 2016; Xie Lishan
et al., 2017; Bove et al., 2018; Yi.Y and Gong.T, 2018). Combining hypopaper 4 and hypopaper
5, this paper concludes that service fairness affects customer citizenship behavior through
customer satisfaction, and proposes hypopaper 7 accordingly:
H7: Customer satisfaction plays a mediating role in the relationship between service equity (4
dimensions) and customer citizenship behavior (3 dimensions).
Questionnaire design
To make the questionnaire design reasonable and serve the purpose of research, this paper
follows a rigorous process of questionnaire design. First of all, through literature reading, the
original scale of relevant variables studied by domestic and foreign scholars was obtained.
Combined with the research object and purpose of this paper, on the basis of the previous scale,
a little modification and adjustment was made, and the rationality of measurement items was
repeatedly discussed with the tutor and several master students to form a preliminary
questionnaire. Then, the consumers who have spent and experienced in fitness enterprises are
interviewed and investigated to confirm whether the expression of measurement items is clear
and easy to understand. Finally, according to the feedback of respondents, the measurement
items were adjusted, modified, and supplemented to form the final questionnaire.
The questionnaire in this paper includes the measurement of four variables, namely
psychological contract, service fairness, customer satisfaction and customer citizenship
behavior, as well as the basic information of the respondents. In the first part, the measurement
of customer psychological contract refers to the scale of Luo Haicheng (2015), with 12
questions in total. The second part, measuring service equity, refers to the scale of Clemmer
and Schneider (1996), Greenberg(1993) et al., with a total of 16 items. The third part,
measuring customer satisfaction, refers to the scale of Bettencourt (1997) and Oliver (1980), a
total of 3 questions. The fourth part, measuring customer citizenship behavior, refers to the
scale of Growth (2015), Gong and Yi (2018), with a total of 9 items. The fifth part is the basic
information of the interviewees, including gender, age, income, etc.
Pre-survey data collection and sample description

This study chooses the fitness industry with high customer involvement as the industry for
empirical research. A total of 4 fitness centers with more than 201 members were selected as
sample sources. The objects of the survey are customers who have spent and experienced in
fitness enterprises (with a card for at least one month).
In this study, questionnaire was used to collect data. Specific investigation methods include
field questionnaire survey and network questionnaire survey. Questionnaires were distributed
mainly from December 10 to December 30, 2022. In this study, 401 questionnaire requests
were actually sent out, 342 were recovered, 26 invalid questionnaires were eliminated, and the
final valid questionnaires were 316. The questionnaire of this study has a total of 40 items, and
the ratio of sample number to questionnaire items is greater than 5:1, which meets the
requirements of data analysis on samples (Hou Jietai et al., 2019).
55
A total of 316 valid questionnaires were finally collected, and the details of the samples
are shown in the following table:
Table Basic information description of research samples
Demographic frequency Percentage (%)
characteristics
gender male 170 53.8
female 146 46.2
age Age 20 and under 34 10.7
21-30 years old 85 26.9
31-40 years old 96 30.4
41-50 years old 74 23.4
Age 51 and above 27 8.5
Degree of education Senior high school and below 28 8.9

(including technical secondary
school)college）
Junior 105 33.2
undergraduate 148 46.8
Master degree or above

35 11.1
occupation student 31 9.8
teacher 47 14.9
Enterprise staff 70 22.2
Public institution staff 101 32.0
Self-employed person 67 21.2
Disposable monthly Less 19 6.0

income
2010-2999
35 11.1
3010-4999 101 32.0
5010-7999 124 39.2
8010 37 11.7
Do(fitness)card type More than 1 year card 39 12.3
1-year card 201 63.6
Half-year card 33 10.4
Quarterly card 18 5.7
Monthly card 25 7.9
Average number of 1 time or less 48 15.2

exercises per month
Two or three times 135 42.7
Four or five times 102 32.3
6 times or more 32 10.1
56
Scale reliability test and analysis

Cronbanch's coefficient was used in this paper to judge the internal consistency of the
questionnaire. According to Guiclford(1995), Cronbanch's coefficient should be above 0.7,
indicating high reliability. At the same time, CITC (corrected total correlation of items) and a
value after deleting items were used to analyze the reliability of each variable. When CITC>0.6,
the item should be deleted if it’s a value is significantly higher after deletion (Guielford, 1995).
Validity analysis of sample data

Validity generally includes content validity and structure validity. The questionnaire of this
study draws on the development scale of previous scholars and integrates the feedback of
tutors, experts, and fitness customers to make appropriate corrections, so it has good content
validity. For structural validity test, firstly, KMO and Bartlett sphericity test were used to
determine whether there was correlation between variables, and then factor analysis was
carried out on each variable. Discriminative validity was judged by standardized factor load
coefficient of each measurement item.
Findings
Sample situation description summary
A total of 316 valid questionnaires were finally collected, and the specific situation of the
samples showed that the distribution of male and female ratio was relatively equal. 68 percent
were younger than 40; Most of them have bachelor's degree and college degree. The highest
proportion of monthly income is 5010-7999 yuan; The proportion of one-year cards accounted
for 63.6%; The average number of exercises per month is mostly 2-3 times.
Data processing, analysis, and verification

SPSS17.0 and LISREL8.7 are mainly used in this study to process, analyze and test all research
data. Specific data analysis methods are as follows:
(1) Descriptive statistical analysis. Basic statistical analysis was conducted on the sample's age,
gender, education background and other basic information as well as the mean value, standard
deviation, and variance of each question item. The descriptive statistics of this study include
enterprise scale, enterprise ownership type, interest related pressure, institutional pressure,
ethical leadership, corporate social responsibility, etc.
(2) Reliability analysis. Cronbach's a was used to determine the internal consistency reliability
of the questionnaire. Cronbach's a was 0.980 for the questionnaire as a whole, 0.941 for
psychological contract, 0.947 for service fairness, and 0.914 for customer satisfaction.
Cronbach's value of customer citizenship behavior was 0.911, both of which were significantly
greater than 0.7, indicating that the questionnaire of this study was generally consistent
internally. Secondly, this paper makes a specific analysis of the reliability of each variable,
including CITC (corrected total correlation of the item) and the A coefficient after deleting the
item. When CITC<0.6, the item should be deleted. If a value is significantly higher after the item
is deleted, the item should be deleted. If not, the item should be retained. The overall reliability
of each variable is greater than 0.8, the CITC of each measurement item is greater than 0.6, and
a value is not significantly improved after deleting the item, which indicates that the scale of
each variable in this paper has high reliability.
(3) Validity analysis. Validity refers to the correctness of all the measured potential variables.
Usually, content validity, aggregate validity and discriminant validity of the research can be
explained separately. For example, the content validity of the study was illustrated through the
distribution and design of questionnaires, the aggregate validity of the study was illustrated
through the factor loading, composite reliability (CR) and average variation sampling (AVE),
57
and the discriminant validity was illustrated through the correlation coefficient matrix of AVE
and latent variables. The analysis tools used in this paper are SPSS16.0 and EXCEL2010.
(4) Correlation analysis. In this paper, Pearson coefficient correlation analysis was used to test
the linear correlation between variables. Regression analysis is to analyze the relationship
between variables by ordinary least square method (OLS), and further verify the influence of
interaction effect and moderating effect. By placing control variables, independent variables,
interaction terms, etc. into the regression model successively, the change of T value and R2 of
variables are tested, so as to determine the significance of the moderating effect. This paper
uses this method to verify some of the hypotheses. The analysis tools used are EXCEL2010 and
SPSS22.0.
(5) Structural equation model analysis. Previous studies mostly used regression models to test
the causal relationship between variables, allowing only one dependent variable to be tested
each time, while ignoring the possible influence of multiple dependent variables (Wu Minglong,
2019). In this paper, structural equation model is used to break through the limitation of
traditional regression method on research hypopaper and measurement error. Given that the
sample size is greater than 201, if the X2/df value of a structural equation is less than 5, the
RMSEA value is less than 0.08, and the CFL, NFL and IFI are all greater than 0.90, it indicates
that the data and model fit well (Hou Jietai et al., 2019).
Conclusion
(1) Psychological contract has a significant positive effect on customer citizenship
behavior
This paper studies the relationship between psychological contract (2 dimensions) and
customer citizenship behavior (3 dimensions) in fitness enterprises. The empirical results
show that psychological contract (2 dimensions) has a significant positive impact on customer
citizenship behavior (3 dimensions). (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al.
2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022). Among them, the trading psychological contract is the
customer to fitness enterprises relatively clear commitment to fulfill, is the most basic
psychological contract. The fulfillment of the trading psychological contract will prompt
customers to recommend the fitness center to others, help other customers make choices and
give feedback to the fitness center. Relationship psychological contract is the customer
perception of the fitness center to respect, care and take care of their responsibilities, is based
on long-term emotional connection based on psychological satisfaction. The fulfillment of
relational psychological contract will also have a positive promoting effect on the
recommendation, helping and feedback behavior of customers.
(2) Service fairness has a significant positive impact on customer citizenship behavior
The empirical research results of this paper on fitness enterprises show that the significance of
service equity (4 dimensions) and customer citizenship behavior (3 dimensions) is different in
different dimensions. Outcome fairness is the customer's perception of fairness in pay and
return and is the basis of fairness of all kinds. The main purpose is to benefit from service. When
customers feel that they benefit, they will be prompted to produce customer citizenship
behaviors such as recommendation, helping others and feedback. Procedural fairness has no
significant influence on recommendation and feedback behavior but has significant positive
influence on helping behavior. Procedural fairness mainly measures whether the service
process of fitness enterprises is fair and reasonable. (Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng
2021; She et al. 2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022). The service process of different customers is
basically similar, which is not enough to influence the recommendation and feedback behavior
of customers. However, the perception of fairness of service process can enable customers to
provide information to other customers to help them choose. Communication fairness is an
58
interactive process based on social emotion. Emotional satisfaction will make customers feel
happy, and then encourage recommendation and feedback behavior. However, only due to
communication fairness, customers cannot understand the service flow and service quality of
fitness enterprises, and thus cannot motivate customers to help other customers. Information
fairness refers to customers' perception of the accuracy and timeliness of information obtained
from enterprises. It produces positive incentives for recommendation behavior but has no
strong incentive effect on helping others and giving feedback.
(3) The mediating effect of customer satisfaction

Among the relationships among psychological contract, customer satisfaction and customer
citizenship behavior, customer satisfaction plays a partial mediating role in the
recommendation and feedback behavior of transaction psychological contract, a complete
mediating role in the helping behavior of transaction psychological contract, and a complete
mediating role in the recommendation, helping and feedback behavior of relational
psychological contract. As the psychological contract of transaction is a psychological contract
that is easy to be perceived by customers and can be measured in the short term, its
performance can directly promote the recommendation behavior and feedback behavior of
customers and can also motivate the recommendation and feedback behavior through
customer satisfaction. As helping behavior is a subjective altruistic behavior of customers and
requires customers to have a full understanding of fitness enterprises, it is necessary to
accumulate customer satisfaction to a certain extent to have an impact on customer citizenship
behavior. Relational psychological contract is a long-term emotional psychological contract, its
performance will make customers have a higher sense of satisfaction, and this sense of
satisfaction is more lasting than the performance of transactional psychological contract, will
have a significant impact on the customer's recommendation, help and feedback behavior.
Customer satisfaction partially mediates outcome fairness on recommendation behavior, and
completely mediates outcome fairness on helping and feedback behavior. Customer
satisfaction plays a partial mediating role in procedural fairness on helping behavior, a
complete mediating role in communication fairness on recommendation and feedback
behavior, and a complete mediating role in information fairness on recommendation behavior.
(Chen et al. 2021; Kang & Ye 2021; Meng 2021; She et al. 2022; Zuo et al. 2023; Yan 2022)
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Cite this article:
Li Haiqing (2023). The Influence of service equity and psychological Contract on Customer
Citizenship Behavior in Chinese Fitness Service Enterprises: Customer Satisfaction as an
Intermediary. International Journal of Science and Business, 23(1), 38-60. doi:
https://doi.org/10.58970/IJSB.2133
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Volume: 23, Issue: 1

The Influence of service equity and

enterprises to use psychological contract and service equity to promote

About Author (s)

(2) Practical significance

The dimensions of customer citizenship behavior

The formation mechanism of customer citizenship behavior

(2) Review of psychological contract

The concept of psychological contracts in marketing situations

Dimensions of psychological contract in marketing Context

(3) A review of service equity

The dimensions of service equity

The research status of service equity theory

(4) Review of customer satisfaction

Factors influencing customer satisfaction

The relationship between customer satisfaction and customer behavior

The Relationship between Service Equity and customer citizenship

The relationship between customer satisfaction and customer citizenship

mediating role in the relationship between psychological contract (2 dimensions) and

H2g: Communication fairness has a positive influence on customers' helping behavior

Pre-survey data collection and sample description

female 146 46.2

age Age 20 and under 34 10.7

21-30 years old 85 26.9

31-40 years old 96 30.4

41-50 years old 74 23.4

Age 51 and above 27 8.5

Degree of education Senior high school and below 28 8.9

undergraduate 148 46.8

Master degree or above

Enterprise staff 70 22.2

Public institution staff 101 32.0

Self-employed person 67 21.2

Disposable monthly Less 19 6.0

5010-7999 124 39.2

Do(fitness)card type More than 1 year card 39 12.3

1-year card 201 63.6

Half-year card 33 10.4

Quarterly card 18 5.7

Monthly card 25 7.9

Average number of 1 time or less 48 15.2

Four or five times 102 32.3

6 times or more 32 10.1

Scale reliability test and analysis

Validity analysis of sample data

Data processing, analysis, and verification

(3) The mediating effect of customer satisfaction

Cite this article:

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